This thesis deals with the general belief shared by all students that phrasal verbs are hard to learn, because of various reasons: there are so many of them, they make no sense, their meanings are never straightforward, etc.
In this thesis the focus is on the definitions of phrasal verbs, numerous studies on the most adequate and easiest way to master phrasal verbs, the frequency of occurrence of phrasal verbs and finally, on an original research conducted for the purposes of this thesis.
The main hypothesis is that the learners of English understand phrasal verbs better when they occur within context than outside of it regardless of their proficiency level, because many authors propose that kind of learning as highly efficient. However, the findings of the research conducted for the purposes of this study do not support this hypothesis. The results indicate that phrasal verbs are slightly better understood when they occur within context, but the difference in the percentage is so small that it can easily be neglected.